Autumn Ratatouille…and Smorgasburg Comes to Whole Foods!

{Hurricane Sandy Update – I have electricity! Aside from flooding on the FDR drive, the Upper East Side of Manhattan pretty much lucked out in terms of power. I have a feeling my apartment building is on a separate electrical grid because of it’s affiliation with New York Presbyterian Hospital, but it’s hard to be sure. My brother lives in the financial district and did, in fact, lose power (Con Ed shut it preemptively)…,and in all likelihood his street is flooded and he should have just come to stay with me. But we all know he’ll never admit that. No updates from my mom and sister in Queens yet this morning, but as of last night at around ten pm they still had power and were doing fine! My thoughts are with everyone who didn’t fare quite as well as I did…hoping for a speedy recovery!}

If you’re looking for a fall-infused version of everyone’s favorite summer stew, then head over to Marcus Samuelsson’s blog to check out my post!

If you’re from the NYC area, then you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Brooklyn Flea, which is a weekly bazaar in Fort Greene and Williamsburg that showcases a wide variety of vendors selling a wide variety of things. Including food. Awesome, awesome food. In fact…the locations in Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridge Park in DUMBO now have all-food markets that they are calling Smorgasburg. However, if you’re from NYC then you know that if you live in one of the boroughs that is NOT Brooklyn, then actually getting to Brooklyn to visit the Flea seems to be much more difficult than it actually is. Basically, it’s a mental thing.

So in order to bridge this distance and bring some fabulous food from some up-and-coming local producers to Manhattan, Whole Foods has partnered with the Brooklyn Flea to launch a new in-store venue, featuring one new vendor from Smorgasburg every month, at it’s Bowery location. The first three months’ worth of vendors has been chosen thus far, with Danny Lyu’s Cemitas running from Oct 22-Nov 20, Keith Klein’s Milk Truck Grilled Cheese running from Nov 26-Dec 23, and Hugh Mangum’s Mighty Quinn’s running from Jan 2-Feb 2. And after that…well, from what I hear there is a lot of deliciousness still yet to come.

The fabulous folks over at Whole Foods offered me a chance to taste some of Danny Lyu’s Cemitas this past week to experience this new venue for myself.

But first – what ARE cemitas?? A cemita is kind of like a torta except…it has ten layers. TEN.AWESOME.LAYERS.

I opted to try out the portobello sandwich, but there are also many meat options. Biting into this sandwich was basically like biting into an explosion of flavor and at every second I felt like I was discovering a new element of the sandwich, each more delicious than the next.

The sandwich fillings are also available in taco and salad form. Since I’m carb loading (always), I decided to try out a taco in addition to the sandwich and, well. It was equally as awesome.

Brett, the Whole Foods PR guy who I was dining with, opted for the salad version of the cemita and from what I could tell it was light and refreshing while still being extremely satisfying.

I would definitely recommend heading over to the Bowery Whole Foods to check out this new venue if you’re in the area….or going out of your way to get there if you’re not. I also can’t wait to see what the next few months have in store! After this fabulous first experience…I’ll definitely be heading back to try out the new vendors as they come in.

Thanks so much to Whole Foods for giving me this great opportunity to eat some delicious food!

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Super glad to hear you guys weathered the storm ok! All the pictures last night were getting pretty scary. Speaking of the Brooklyn Flea, we used to live right down the street, on the Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill boundary. It was always pretty hard to summon the energy to go into Manhattan (for non-work-related reasons, anyway) from out there!

I’m very glad you’re ok 🙂 Our news footage only showed the parts of NYC that were under water, on fire, or lacking power and sometimes safe buildings. (We’re a bit catastrophic down here.) I hope your family are doing well too and I love the look of those cemitas!